A few weeks ago, I did something very daring.  I buzzed about a quarter of my head.  I did this a few weeks ago and I’m finally getting around to posting about it.  The day I got it done, I was being a bit of a tease by saying, “Shaving my head!”

Of course, after saying that, people were freaking out.  I got interesting responses and there were a few that surprised me.  Those who I thought would disapprove were cheering me on, while others who I thought wouldn’t care or would be somewhat supportive, were aghast.  I sort of felt like a troll in the end when I only shaved a part of my head, but it’s still a major change.

I’ve always been known for my full head of hair and my hair color.  Because of the hair color thing, I’ve never dyed my hair, and the closest chemical that my hair has been exposed to is a shine treatment that I got for myself for graduation.

So on that note, my abilities to do anything really crazy with my hair have always been limited.  My mother wouldn’t even let me do the colored hairspray when I was a kid in fear that I would damage my hair color.  Same thing went for temporary hair dye.  Never been able to do it.  Do I feel like I’m missing out on something by never dying my hair?  Eh…sometimes.  I get jealous of those who can dye their hair black with bold colors like pink or blue as highlights.  I guess that tells you what kind of style I’m into.

But anyway, when I told my mother that I wanted to shave a part of my head, she looked at me and just simply asked, “Why?”  And for the first time, I was able to give an answer that made sense and was logical almost immediately.  I said, “Because it’s something I want to do for me.”

This was something that I wanted to do for myself.  So often I watched other people do this same hairstyle and I always thought about how cool that looked.  It was so edgy, and it was a statement of self-independence and not caring about what others think.  And on the plus side, it would be easy to hide at work since all I need to do is flip the hair over.

But I’m also aware of what people may think of me with part of my hair gone.  They will probably see me as a punk, a hippie, a crazy kid, unprofessional, doesn’t give a f*ck about what society thinks of me (partially true), and maybe a crazy hooligan.  But they only see me for a moment.  They don’t see me as my friends and family see me.  They don’t see the person with the full-time job and a Master’s degree.  But you know what? That’s okay.

Living with the haircut for two weeks now has taught me a lot about myself.  For one, I feel like I’m myself.  I feel like I’ve finally fallen into my own element and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I know myself.  I feel so much more confident and happy with my appearance.  Not to mention, maintenance is so much easier and my head and neck don’t get quite as hot and greasy like they used to.  And straightening my hair only takes a fraction of the time it used to.  This is something that I’m so glad I did and I’ll hang on to this haircut for a while.  I might even buzz more off now that I know this is something I like.  This was a huge step for me, because I really was afraid that it would look terrible, but in the end, I love it.

Take risks.  Risk failure.  If you fail, you fail.  But you’ll never know unless you try.